


Abandoned

by Hours_Gone_By



Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One), Transformers Generation One, Transformers – All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe – Horror, Alternate Universe – Magic, Amulets, Combat, Gen, Homemade Zine, Magic, The Fall of Praxus, abandoned hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:08:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27948080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hours_Gone_By/pseuds/Hours_Gone_By
Summary: Separated from their unit, Sideswipe's squad hole up in an abandoned hospital for the night. But there's something definitely not right about this place, and soon they all start to wonder if they're going to make it until morning.
Relationships: Sideswipe & Sunstreaker
Comments: 17
Kudos: 28
Collections: HOMEMADE: A Transformers AU Zine





	Abandoned

**Author's Note:**

> Initially written for the homemade AU zine, published in November 2020.

Sideswipe didn't like retreating, but sometimes even the most combat-thirsty front-liner had to admit it was necessary. When you weren't doing all that great anyway, and then Decepticon necromancers took to the field – yeah. Time to make yourself scarce. Sideswipe didn't know where the Autobot mages were, and he didn't have time to wonder about it. He and his unit fell back, taking an injured Wheeljack with them. Bluestreak, perched above the battlefield, covered the squad until they made it to his position, then joined them.

"Two cartridges of blessed ammunition left," Bluestreak reported grimly. "Don't get jumped by anything that regular ammo won't take out."

Great. Without blessed ammunition, they were down to amulets, the protective etchings in their armour, whatever Wheeljack could cast, and luck. Just to add to their joy, they weren't anywhere near a base, and night was falling. Nights were dangerous when you were supplied and _weren't_ retreating from the undead. There could be safety in numbers, but only to a point. Sideswipe hoped they didn't reach it.

' _Map shows a town ahead,'_ Hound commed everyone. ' _Might not be much left, it's marked as abandoned._ '

' _It's got to be better than staying out here,_ ' Trailbreaker replied.

' _I can still cast wards,_ ' Wheeljack added. He was an alchemist, not a mage, but he could do some basic magic. ' _The more intact the building, the better, though._ '

' _Right, I'll go a little further ahead and find someplace to shelter._ '

' _Take 'Breaker with you,_ ' Bluestreak, covering their retreat at the end of their column, said. ' _This isn't a place you want to be alone._ '

' _You know this area?_ ' Sideswipe asked.

' _We're near Praxus._ '

 _Oh._ Sideswipe shut up. Bluestreak had been lucky to make it out of Praxus alive and uncursed. Primus only knew what nasty surprises the chaos-bombs that destroyed it had left behind or what had mutated since.

' _Gotcha, Bluestreak,_ ' Hound replied. ' _Trailbreaker, I'll hold this position until you rendezvous with me._ '

While Hound and Trailbreaker did recon, the rest of the squad kept going. They couldn't afford to stop, but they did have to slow down a little. Wheeljack was starting to flag, and Sideswipe wasn't sure how well the field dressing on his injury was holding up. Sure, one of the twins or Trailbreaker could carry him, but that meant one less pair of hands for weapons.

That meant two mecha who couldn't run fast, instead of just one.

It was nearly a breem before Hound commed back.

' _We're here. One building looks safe, a hospital from what's left of the sign. Advance to our current coordinates, it's big enough I want backup to secure it.'_

Advancing through the town made Sideswipe tense up again. It was more what he _felt_ than what he _saw_. He couldn't pin a reason down, it was just – something. Getting to cover should have made him feel better, but the building the scouts had found wasn't reassuring. Abandoned hospitals were a special kind of creepy, yeah, but this place – this place felt like it was waiting for them, and _not_ with fresh wax and warm energon.

"I've got a weird feeling about that place," Sideswipe murmured to Sunstreaker. "You?"

"Yeah," Sunstreaker said. "It looks way too good, for starters."

"We looked at some other buildings," Hound said apologetically, "but this one's the best option. The others are all missing at least one wall or a roof. "

Making them harder to ward, yeah. Not impossible, but weak wards were almost as bad as no wards at all. An intact building was exactly what they wanted. Sideswipe just wished it wasn't this building.

They found a defensible room in the admin area and stashed Wheeljack there with Trailbreaker to guard him. Wheeljack wouldn't ward the room yet, since he was short on supplies and only wanted to do it once, with everyone safe behind it. Trailbreaker's force field would give him and Wheeljack protection against almost anything, at least for a short time.

Sideswipe tried not to think about that 'almost.'

The rest of them split up to search the hospital. No one liked separating, but it would be faster to clear it this way. Sideswipe went with Bluestreak, exploring the east side of the small, two-storey hospital. It was a standard small-town hospital: administration, emergency room, and diagnostic areas on the main floor and wards on the second. It was utterly ordinary except somehow…not. Sideswipe had seen a lot of abandoned places, and they always looked one of two ways: like there'd been a somewhat organized retreat or like everyone had run for it ahead of whatever was coming for them. They _never_ looked like this place. Supply closets were still full of valuable medical supplies. Tools and equipment looked like they had just been set down. Energon cubes sat on desks and tables, and the residue on the sides suggested they'd been abandoned partly full. It had been _vorns_ since anyone had enough fuel to leave it lying around like that! All of it gave the place an eerie feeling, one that couldn't be just Sideswipe's imagination, either. There had to be a reason anywhere this well-stocked hadn't been raided already.

Well, it was getting raided now. Sideswipe's unit was already running low on supplies, and their detour made it likely they'd run out before getting back to base. Sideswipe and Bluestreak filled their subspaces and noted the hospital's coordinates. A team could be sent later to get the rest.

' _Sideswipe_ ,' Sunstreaker commed as they were finishing, ' _everything on your side okay?_ '

' _Yeah, so far. Creepy and weird, but no threats._ '

 _'Yeah. I keep expecting people to just walk back in and pick up where they left off._ '

' _Yeah._ '

Sunstreaker paused, then asked, ' _have you heard anything over there?_ '

' _Like what?_ '

' _Sometimes like scraping, sometimes like voices. It's weird. Nothing on sensors. Just…keep an audial out for it, and hurry back to basecamp, okay?_ '

' _Yeah, okay._ '

Sideswipe took Sunstreaker's suggestion to spark. He and Bluestreak finished their search as quick as possible and headed back to the office they were using as their temporary base. Sunstreaker and Hound were already back, and they'd grabbed some supplies as well. Sideswipe and Bluestreak added their takings to the pile, and Trailbreaker divided it into six piles so they'd all be pretty equally stocked if they got separated.

"You guys hear anything out there?" Trailbreaker asked, softly to not disturb Wheeljack while he murmured incantations and drew protective wards.

"Yeah," Hound said. "Weird sounds, kinda like voices. You?"

"I thought I heard a hover-sled," Trailbreaker said, sorting quickly as if he were trying to take his mind off what he was saying. "But even if anyone was here, those are rarely used these days."

Hover-sleds used a ton of energy, so they'd mostly been abandoned by the start of the war. They only got used these days if the energy cost was justified, like in an emergency. This hospital hadn't seen hover-sleds, or emergencies, in a long time.

"I didn't hear anything," Sideswipe said honestly.

"Me neither," Wheeljack, standing now that he'd finished with the wards, said. "But I was pretty focused on planning my cantrips."

"Too late to find anywhere else," Trailbreaker observed.

"Even if it wasn't, with the way this place is buzzing, we shouldn't leave before the sun's been up for at least a breem," Wheeljack said. "That way, the sun'll be high enough we won't run into shadows on our way out."

Sunstreaker huffed. "Thanks, Wheeljack. That's not creepy at all."

The ordinarily cheerful alchemist gave Sunstreaker an unusually serious look. "Better creeped out and safe than sorry. And in the dark in this place? I think you might wind up being _really_ sorry."

Everyone shut up and hunkered down after that, ensuring their protective etchings were still intact, and their amulets were securely set in their armour. Wheeljack wasn't a full-fledged wizard, but not listening to him about mystical stuff was always a bad idea. 

They'd all refuelled and were dividing up the watches – no _way_ was Sideswipe letting everyone be asleep at the same time in this place – when Bluestreak suddenly tensed up. 

"Bluestreak?" Hound asked quietly.

"You secured the external doors when we cleared the building, right?" Bluestreak asked, frowning.

"Yeah," Sunstreaker said frowning. "Of course we did. We'd have heard if someone broke in."

"You didn't put wards on them, though, did you?" Bluestreak pressed.

"No," Sunstreaker said slowly. "Not without Wheeljack. Why?"

"I thought I heard someone walking in the hall. None of us missed anything, right? There's nowhere someone could've hidden?"

"We checked everything, Bluestreak," Hound reassured him. "Every ward, office, and closet."

"I don't hear things that aren't there, Hound."

"No one else heard anything," Sunstreaker countered and looked around. "Right?"

"I didn't," Wheeljack said, "but it definitely feels weirder in here than it did earlier." Not reassuring anyone, he added, "I'm going to strengthen the wards a bit. The rest of you try to get some rest."

"Trailbreaker, want to switch watches with me?" Bluestreak asked unexpectedly. "I'm not going to be able to rest for a while."

"Sure," Trailbreaker agreed.

Everyone settled down since there wasn't anything else to do, and the building was silent once more. For a while, at least. Sideswipe was almost in recharge when he heard something in the hallway. It was too soft to make out words, but it sounded like mecha talking. Sideswipe boosted the gain on his audials but still couldn't make out the words.

"Sideswipe," Sunstreaker, lying beside him, whispered. "You hearing that?"

"Yeah," Sideswipe whispered back.

"You too, huh?" Trailbreaker asked in a low voice, from Sideswipe's other side.

"We all are," Hound said, just loud enough to carry. "Except Wheeljack, he's still out."

Even explosions often failed to wake Wheeljack, so that wasn't surprising.

"Let him rest," Bluestreak said, in his battlefield voice. "He needs it. The same with the rest of you. I'll send an emergency ping if I need to wake you up."

"Yeah, sure," Sunstreaker snorted. "I'll just try to ignore the creepy voices three mechano-metres away."

Bluestreak didn't rise to the bait. "Yes, you should."

Should or not, Sideswipe just couldn't manage it. He didn't think anyone else – except Wheeljack – was recharging right now either. But they were silent, and that meant Sideswipe wound up focusing on what - _who_ ever it was outside the door instead. The noises slowly got more distinct, until Sideswipe was sure there were multiple voices, arguing. He could hear the humming noise Trailbreaker had mentioned as well, and a quick glance over his shoulder at Bluestreak told him he wasn't the only one. The sniper stood in the rear corner of the room, rifle aimed at the dead centre of the door.

That did it for Sideswipe. Bluestreak wouldn't be on alert without reason. Everyone thought that Bluestreak had a high-def sensor suite to help him gauge things like wind and traces of occult energies. Sideswipe didn't doubt that, but he thought an Outlier ability might come into play, too. Bluestreak seemed to pick up more than just a really good sensor suite could explain.

Sideswipe sat up, felt Sunstreaker's hand land on his arm.

"You too, huh?" Sunstreaker said, pushing himself up on his other elbow.

"Yeah," Sideswipe said quietly, optics drawn to the door. "Me too."

Bluestreak spared the twins a glance when they moved but didn't say anything more about trying to recharge. Maybe he didn't want to make any noise, maybe he was just glad for the extra backup.

The voices from outside the room got louder, enough that Sideswipe could briefly make out some of the words.

"We … do you … ?"

The reply to that was almost inaudible, but Sideswipe swore he heard the word 'almost.' The voices lapsed back to mumbling. Knowing _someone_ out there was talking but hearing nothing was even worse than hearing a few things. Everything was quiet, unnaturally so, for nearly a klik, then a voice spoke again, as clear and as loud as if it was in the room with them.

" _They're in there._ "

Everyone was up now, weapons out of subspace for all the good they'd do against whatever was out there.

There were at least three voices, and Bluestreak only had two blessed cartridges left. Sideswipe was really, really wishing he had more. Wheeljack was standing in front of the door, chanting softly, doing something with his hands and a glass sphere glowing with occult energy.

The door creaked in its tracks as if it were being forced open from the outside. Trailbreaker swore – something Sideswipe had _never_ heard before – and a forcefield sprang into life in front of them. The door's servomotors whined, and Sideswipe thought he saw the slightest bit of pressure against the forcefield, wards and locked door or not.

"Wheeljack…" Sideswipe started, not even sure what he was going to say. Bluestreak beat him to it.

" _Wheeljack!_ " Bluestreak snapped. "Whatever you're doing - !"

Wheeljack barked a word Sideswipe didn't know and smashed the glass sphere between his palms. Something that registered on Sideswipe's sensors as both heat and light but was neither washed over him. Wheeljack slapped his hands against the doors, leaving marks of oily residue studded with glass fragments and said something that ended with 'Primus.' Silence fell again, on both sides of the door.

"Is it done?" Hound whispered after a couple of tense kliks.

"I don't know," Wheeljack answered.

No one got any more rest that night.

* * *

Morning finally arrived, and they followed Wheeljack's advice to wait for a breem after sunup before breaking the wards and getting out of there. Bluestreak stayed in his position in the back of the room, covering them as they opened the door. There was nothing and no one on the other side. The building still looked as eerily pristine as it had the night before. It was as if nothing had happened, all the terror had been nothing but a bad dream.

"I wonder what that was last night?" Wheeljack said thoughtfully as he broke the wards. "I've never experienced anything like it."

"Me neither," Sunstreaker said, "and I never want to experience it again. Let's _go_."

The squad got out of there as fast as they could. As they crested a hill on the outside of the town, Sideswipe looked back over his shoulder. The town was slowly filling with mist, seemingly centred around the hospital, covering it. Sideswipe was _not_ sorry to see it vanish. But even after they'd gotten down the other side of the hill, he couldn't stop listening for the voices and the sounds. He couldn't shake the feeling of something nearby, watching and listening. Sideswipe had seen lots of creepy places and generally weird slag, but he'd never felt like this before. He watched the others, rubbing their inset amulets and their etchings, watched Bluestreak stay on alert, and he wondered if they'd really made it out alright after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:  
> 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> Author Responses: This author replies to comments. If you don't want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with "whisper," and I will appreciate it but not respond.


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